How I ended up in Yiwu......and started this business
Today you find me sitting in my office, with nice mountain views and river views, excuses me for being a bit show off ;-) This is largely because of the “unhappy things” happened to me in past 3 years. ★Here is how I started up this business★I Hate Scam! When I worked as a service rep and a salesman in Alibaba, some terrible things happened to me now and then that really hurted me. My clients, most of them were buyers, got scammed as lack of right information! Some of these buyers even paid to have themselves verified as TrustPass members(a type of paid membership on alibaba.com). They are serious buyers! But suppliers either disappeared after receiving money, or shipped out crappy goods. Buyers were loosing thousands of dollars! I'm a man of honesty and integrity character. "Hopeless honest", "the last man in the world can make quick money", "clumsy"... are the hats my sweet wife puts on me periodically. I take all that as high complimentary. (Sorry, darling) Once I got so angry that I picked up my phone and started to threat the scammer! Whether the scammer returned the money back or delivered the goods I didn't know. But I do know I received a warning from my boss. That nearly drove me crazy. Ugrh!!! (Alibaba has a "professional" team handling these cases)  A small fire started to burn in my mind…I must do something to help those poor buyers and stop those ugly scammers! But as a salesman, everyday you need to make dozens of phones calls and send out thousands of spam(few may not be spams) emails. Orders are your salary, your face, your future, your everything. But that fire never died, it still kept burning and burning... Early 2009, a very severe stomachache knocked me off and sent me to a big hospital. I'd never been to a major hospital before. Things were pretty fresh to me. It's so quiet in the late night as I lay in bed in the hospital... that fire started burning again...Got down to earth from bed next early morning, I made a decision that I should no more work as a salesman in Alibaba. I need to do something else. I need to help these honest people by offering enough good information, instead of getting them paid for Alibaba, then left them unprotected. After-wards I decided to start up an agent to help suppliers do online marketing and foreign trade. I swore to myself that I must trade with 100% credibility, only earn what I should. Several of my friends were also interested in this thing and we planned to start an agent in Guangzhou jointly. Unfortunately, being lack of experiences and got too many "bosses", the agent quickly failed down. I came back to Hangzhou again. Very soon, I paid a visit to Yiwu. I knew some Yiwu suppliers when I worked in Alibaba. And I also wanted to visit the world famous international trade city. ♬ The Turning Point Came! ♬ The time I stepped into the International Trade City, I was blown away immediately by the richness of the products here. I remembered clearly I was visiting the hair ornaments market then. I'd never seen such a scene: hundreds of stalls sitting one next to another, displaying different hair clips, stretched out without end. I browsed and browsed until I felt dizzy and could not walk. I also saw flocks of foreign buyers from Mid-east, Africa, Europe and America(Sorry, just judged from their dressing and complexion) are sourcing inside! You know that was the hardest time when the worldwide financial crisis hit everything relentlessly. Back to my hotel with sore legs, I started to think: Why the buyers spend all that time and energy and money come that far to Yiwu market to source by themselves? Why they don’t just use online tools like Alibaba or have agents to do that? It's so much easier and can also reduce cost! After did some research and talked to several buyers. I got the answer: because of the bad middlemen and unfaithful suppliers! TRUST Problem! ★★★This is It!★★★ Guess what? I ended up in Yiwu studying the market and offering sourcing tour guide service to overseas buyers. At the same time, I started this www.yiwu-market-guide.com. More and more buyers found me by this website and started to contact me for arranging their Yiwu visit. It was quite a success. As time goes by, I find most buyers also need me to arrange other things like collect goods, do QC, arrange shipping... after their visits. So I registered my company Yiwu Jin-Jack Import & Export Co., Ltd. Jin is my wife's given name and I'm so thankful that she could come to Yiwu to help with shipping and documentations. She had been worked for FEDEX for 2+ years before. It turned out that she's the right person for this position;-) Greetings from Yiwu Jin-Jack Import & Export in Yiwu, China ~ Comments:Sep. 15 2010 - From VINAY : DEAR JACK, I GOT INTRODUCED TOYOU BY MR.CHARAN OF FIJI ISLANDS THIS IS THE MOST AND THE MOST HONEST DESCRIPTION OF ANYBODY I HAVE READ IN RECENT TIMES.. I HAVE BEEN CHEATED BY SCRUPULOUS IDIOTIC ALIBABA SUPPLIERS TWICE FOR ABOUT 65000 USD,, IN A PRODUCT CALLED POTTASIUM CHLORATE,,, THIS WAS REALLY REALLY HURTING.. I SUPPOSE,I CAN TRUST YOU .. PLEASE ALSO TELL ME, IF YOU ARE HANDLING INDIAN BUYERS OR IF YOU HAVE ANY INDIAN CUSTOMERS. Hello Jack, Thank you for everything. We did have a great experience at Yiwu. Hope everything is going well for you and your family. Looking foreward to see you soon again. We well also up date you in regards to the business matters soon after the new year holidays. Hello jack Just want you to know that I appreciate your help – you did a great report last time. Thanks for your help Dear Jack I want to just quickly email you to say that the goods have arrived. I have opened the box but have not inspected them properly yet but it looks ok from what I’ve seen. I shall of course email you back once I have done so, but I would just like to say a big thank you to you and jin for your help. I am very happy with the service you have provided me. Oct. 23 2009 - From Kelly: Hi Jack & Jin I just arrived ack home 2 days ago. Like to say a big THANK YOU for your great help when I was in Yiwu. Your help was a blessing to me. Just to let you know that the courier service Leopards did deliver the 2 parcels to my Singapore address butthey are some stuffs that gone missing. I will get in touch with you again. Good Bye Sep 17 2009 - From Anthony: Jack, I read your story and very impressed that you started this Yiwu service. I know for a fact if I ever visit Yiwu you will be the person I will appoint as my agent. Hi Jack, I totally agree with what you said here. I travel to Hong Kong and China almost every other month to purchase my items. It costs a lot of money doing this but because of language barrier and TRUST, i have to do this. If I could avail of the the services of people i coould really trust, then there is no need for me to travel so often and save a lot on my travelling expenses. >> Return to Yiwu Market Guide Home Page from Jack Yang Yiwu New! CommentsHave your say about what you just read! Leave me a comment in the box below. |
Hi,my name is Jack Yang. I'm the founder of www.yiwu-market-guide.com and Yiwu Jin-Jack Import & Export Co.,Ltd. You can call me "Jack" or "Yang".